


counting backwards, things you've injured (tear down them all)

by despitethewives (choirboyharem)



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Infidelity, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choirboyharem/pseuds/despitethewives
Summary: Danny and Drew have been married for five years. Things could be better.
Relationships: Danny Gonzalez/Drew Gooden
Comments: 9
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry to all of you that one of the very few drewdann writers on ao3 is a complete and total grade-a freakshow. mind the tags.
> 
> the title is from _soft sounds from another planet_ by japanese breakfast.

“Stop it.”

”Why?”

”I have a splinter and a burn on that same finger.”

”Why haven’t you pulled the splinter out?”

”You don’t think I’ve fucking tried?”

”I wasn’t—“

”I tried to pull it out when I was at work and it snapped too close for me to try and pull it out again. But yeah, no. No, it’s fine, keep, like...mashing it in even more, I guess.”

”I didn’t know it was in there!”

”Jesus, it doesn’t even matter, okay? Just leave me alone. I can’t even hear what’s going on right now.” 

“Sorry.” 

Drew pulled his raw, chapped bottom lip between his teeth, picking idly at his aching finger as he watched the TV screen. He’d completely lost track of the plot. In under a minute, he’d missed something vital and now he couldn’t follow a single thing that was happening. 

“I don’t even know what any of the fuck this is now,” he muttered. “Why did you grab my hand like that?”

Danny looked irritated and subdued, picking his phone up from the couch. “I like your hands,” he said. “I just wanted to play with them, I guess. I like playing with your fingers. I’m sorry.” 

“I literally work with my hands constantly. The likelihood's gonna be that you’re aggravating something when you just reach out and touch one.”

“Oh my God, I’m _sorry,_ okay? I said I was sorry!”

“I’m just making sure you know.” Drew dug deeply into his index finger, trying in vain to pick at the splinter and he felt the pain of it sting the corners of his eyes. He wouldn’t have thought about it at all if it hadn’t been touched. He wouldn’t have had to think about anything if it hadn’t been touched. “It fucking hurts,” he hissed, getting to his feet and heading for the staircase. “Goddamn it, Danny.” 

“I don’t know how it’s my fault that you’ve got a splinter!” Danny protested after him, dangerously exasperated. Drew clenched his teeth and climbed the stairs, feeling the throb in his finger with every step. He was just going to disinfect it, cover it in Bactine, and slap a Band-Aid on it. Like he had earlier. And last night. 

“See, my whole problem is you having this obsession with just touching me for no reason.” Drew let the bathroom door bang against the wall as he flung it open. The medicine cabinet was overstuffed and it took too long to find the first-aid kit. Bottles of Klonopin were hiding it and Drew felt such a surge of annoyance at himself that he winced and tore a cut in his used and abused bottom lip. “And now I’m in pain because of this shit.”

“I love you and sometimes I just touch you because I fucking care about you! I’ve never done anything that’s like—I’ve never taken _advantage_ of you—“

“Oh, you haven’t raped me yet, that’s what I like to hear from my doting husband.” Drew ripped open a Band-Aid, listening to his own voice get sharper and harder and meaner as the pain began to spike higher and higher. It seemed to be spreading up his arm. 

It was quiet for a moment—a glorious moment—before Danny spoke again. “That’s literally—that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I don't even know what you're talking about.” His voice barely carried up the stairs and the tremor in it didn’t help. “Why would you say that?” 

_Might as well just amputate it now,_ Drew thought absurdly. His hand dripped with Bactine as he pulled the Band-Aid around his finger. Everything fucking hurt. 

The footsteps on the stairs, quiet and careful, made him cringe as he tore open another Band-Aid to put over his burn. Drew started to feel shaky. He didn’t need or want much of anything right now. He didn’t want to hear or see or feel anything. He wanted to go to sleep for a while. 

“Do you need some help?” Danny asked softly, lingering in the doorway. 

“No,” Drew snapped, crumpling the wrapper and letting it fall. 

“Are you okay, though?”

“I’m fine.”

“I just want—“

“Jesus Christ, I’m _fine,_ Danny, alright?" Drew shut the lid of the kit and vaguely registered Danny flinching because of it. "Does this make you feel better? Babying me like this? Do I literally have to scream at you to leave me the fuck alone before you actually understand what I'm trying to say?" 

Danny took a step back, shriveling. "Uh, no. No. I just..." He rested his head against the door frame, rubbing the paint with his thumb. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I get worried about you sometimes."

"I don't need you to." Drew shoved the kit back into the medicine cabinet and brushed past Danny, his arm throbbing relentlessly. It was now extending to his head. "I'm gonna go lay down."

"...Do you want me to wake you up for dinner later?" 

"No." The bedroom door sounded like a gunshot when Drew slammed it shut. 

**II.**

"I'm thinking about quitting." Drew picked at a scab on his knuckle, knowing he shouldn't and also knowing he wasn't going to stop. "I have to. I hate this job. I think it's just making everything worse."

"Are you talking about the anxiety or are you talking about Danny?" Amanda asked on the other end of the line.

Drew frowned. "The anxiety." He sucked in his breath through his teeth when he peeled off a piece of dead skin. It stung like pouring salt in the wound. "What do you mean, though? What does this have to do with him?"

"You two seem kind of tense," Amanda said, her tone more cautious than Drew would've preferred. "I don't know. It feels like there's something between you and him lately."

"We're fine. I don't know, maybe we're not as close lately because of his new job, but everything's...fine." 

"He doesn't work that much, does he? Isn't it just a nine-to-five?"

"Yeah, it's an editing job," Drew said shortly. "But it's more than what he was doing before. We just don't have time to be around each other."

"Do you _want_ to be around each other?"

"Yes. Of course. Obviously. That's not the problem. I love him. He's a fucking ray of sunshine." Drew leaned back in the office chair and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, exhaling. "He's perfect, he's a dream come true, he's amazing, he's sweet and he's funny and he's talented, the whole fucking, like, the whole package. He's everything. Why wouldn't I wanna spend time with him? Can we talk about something else? What's—what's up with you, anyway?" 

Amanda clicked her tongue. "Well, I was gonna ask what you're doing for your anniversary, because I was gonna tell you I'm going to a festival in Louisiana next month and might not be around, but given everything you just said, I doubt there's gonna be much that I'll miss anyway." 

"Oh my God, okay, you know, it's totally normal for two people in a relationship to have a little bit of fucking strain on them from time to time. We just need to get some of our shit together. It's fine. We're fine."

"Okay! Okay, it's fine, you're fine. Forget I said anything." Amanda sighed. "I should go to bed. I'll talk to you later, okay? I love you."

"Love you too." 

"Please treat yourself better."

"I will." 

"'Night, Drew."

"Goodnight." 

They'd broken up seven years ago. Every time Drew hung up the phone after talking to her, he had this weird little pull at the very back of his mind that made him think about what would've happened if they hadn't. 

(Which probably always would've happened anyway, because they would have always been better friends than lovers, but it was still something to think about. Would he have been any happier?) 

(Probably not.) 

**III.**

Danny's hair was particularly unruly when he was asleep, falling into a state of disarray where curls were tangled together and they fell over his forehead, making him seem years younger than he was. It softened the rest of his face. Drew gently wrapped one around his finger and pulled it tight. 

Whenever Drew watched him while Danny was asleep, it was like looking back at a picture taken exactly five years ago. It was like looking at the first night after the wedding that they'd spent together in the house; Drew had stayed awake after Danny had fallen asleep just so he could stare at his husband and think about how that wasn't a completely arbitrary title anymore and that it actually meant something. His husband. 

Drew desperately wished he still had that kind of bubbly, champagne-drunk giddiness that filled him every time he looked at Danny now. He didn't even know what it was anymore, but he knew it was supposed to feel like something different. He released the curl around his finger, gripped Danny's shoulder, and pushed him onto his back. Better to act without thinking. Without overthinking. 

Danny groaned, stirring and blinking slowly with lazy, heavy eyes. "Drew," he mumbled, scrubbing at his eyelid with the heel of his hand and sniffling. "What—"

"Shh." Drew pushed his thigh between Danny's legs, slipping into him and kissing him firmly. Danny didn't exactly reciprocate, but he didn't do anything to stop it, either. Probably still too stricken. His fingers hovered and twitched in mid-air above Drew's shoulder as if he were unsure about whether or not Drew should be touched. _(What the fuck are you scared of? What about me is scary to you?)_

They hadn't done this in a month or so. It could've been what they needed. It had to be, because if this wasn't it, the only thing left was therapy and that was, uh, less than desirable. Lots and lots of money thrown at the most performative shit imaginable just so they could have a possibly-fake doctor tell them they just needed to Talk Things Out. They weren't rich enough to afford name-brand cereal, let alone afford marriage therapy. They could afford this. Drew could afford his tongue in Danny's mouth and a hand up his pajama shirt, fingertips dragging over slights and dips that had sharpened and softened in opposite directions over the years. Slights and dips that Drew wanted to sink his teeth into and tear open. 

Drew wanted to be rough enough for this to mean something beyond tonight. Maybe if Danny felt it under his clothes during work tomorrow, it would be enough to make him think about how he'd been acting lately. (Which was a horrible thought, the idea of using sex as a form of punishment, but that wasn't it. It was just about bringing Danny back down to his feet again. _Discipline_ was a better word. Which, hey, wasn't less fucked up. But it didn't matter. He was overthinking.) Drew's fingers curled in and dragged down, fingernails scraping down Danny's ribcage and stomach. Danny yelped, sharp and startled, his spine snapping in a shudder. 

"Jesus—Drew, fuck, come on, slow down," Danny gasped out, pulling on Drew's shirt. His heart hammering in his chest, Drew ignored it, biting the crook of Danny's neck and laving his tongue over the mark. "I-I've got—I've got work tomorrow morning; why are we doing this _now?"_

"Just let me do this." Drew's voice trembled as he tugged Danny's boxers down. "Please, just—stop fucking talking." He yanked his wrist free when Danny tried to grab it and leaned over to pull open the bedside table drawer. 

"But can't we just do this, like, tomorrow night? Not at one AM? I'm tired." 

"No." The exasperation in his voice made it sound a lot angrier than Drew meant it to. He struggled with the lube cap in the near-darkness, barely able to see with the tiny sliver of moonlight that shone in between the slats of the blinds. It was probably for the best, because it meant he couldn't see Danny's expression very well either. 

"Please?" Danny's voice was softer, more tired, his hand falling to rest on Drew's thigh as Drew overheated and shivered, straddling Danny's waist. "We can, like, we can do whatever. I'll go down on you as soon as you get home. Whatever. It can be anything." 

In a surge of distress and agony, Drew clamped one hand over Danny's mouth. The other dipped between Danny's legs, blind but practiced. "I'm going to fuck you," Drew said, "and then I'll put you to bed, okay? I'll tuck you in." He pushed two slick fingers into Danny, feeling a harsh twist of heat in the pit of his stomach when Danny cried out behind his sweating hand. 

Danny wrapped his fingers around Drew's forearm, saying something muffled and incoherent in between little whines. Drew steadily pumped his hand, watching Danny's eyelashes flutter over wide, frightened eyes. 

_What the fuck are you scared of?_ Drew thought, taking his hand off Danny's mouth to brush his curls away from his forehead instead. _It's me. Just look at me. What the fuck are you scared of? What?_

Danny turned his head and shut his eyes, panting quietly, shifting his hips. "There's this, a-ah." He licked his lips and looked at the blinds. "There's, like, this weird European alt-pop artist I was listening to the other day, you'd probably hate him, but I just found him on my, um, my Discover page and he has this song about idolizing some girl and wanting to fuck her and then marry her, but after he marries her—" He moaned and pressed his cheek into the pillow before finishing in a rush, "—he's just trapped in this loveless marriage because he kind of objectified her and he thought he was in love b-because of that."

"Okay," Drew said slowly, curling his fingers up inside Danny, making his hips arch off the bed. "So?"

Danny continued to watch the blinds, clutching the pillow under his head. "I dunno how in love with me you are." 

"Oh, God," Drew said, his voice dripping with disgust as he pulled his fingers back out of Danny. He fumbled around for a moment before finding the poorly-capped lube bottle on the mattress again. "That's a really shitty distraction, y'know. Why are you being so dramatic?" 

"It wasn't—"

"Stop. Stop. Stop it. If you wanna give me fucking, like, these thesis statements about how I ruined your life, save it for the next time we go on vacation." Drew's fingers were covered and slicker still with Bactine—lube—whatever—as he tugged his pajama pants off with his free hand, awkward and stilted, demonstrating yet another picture-perfect lack of foresight. "I don't want to hear it." 

"I never said you ruined my life. I've never said that." 

"You didn't have to." Drew pushed Danny's thigh up, fingers digging into the skin to pull him closer. 

* * *

"I'm fucking done, I'm tired—"

"You can't stick it out for thirty fucking seconds? Are you a fucking adult? _Are you twenty-six years old!?"_

"Get the fuck off of me!" 

"Shut up, shut the fuck up, or I swear to Christ, I'm gonna fucking strangle you." A hand wrapped itself in mangled dark hair, twisted, and shoved. The heel of Drew's hand drove into the back of Danny's head, pushing his face into the pillow as he kneed apart Danny's legs. 

* * *

"I'm not sleeping in here."

Sweat-slicked and shuddering, Drew shut his eyes and rolled over to face the blinds. He wanted to die. Never had he felt so cataclysmically bad in his life. "...That's fine. I'm sorry." 

Danny didn't sound angry. He sounded weepy. Weepy and miserable and exhausted and that was so, so, so much worse. Drew heard him say something, too quiet and unstable to make out. It might've just been incoherent whimpering. 

Drew felt colder the second Danny left the room, pathetic and naked from the waist down, tangled among damp sheets and laying his head on an equally-damp pillowcase. 

Drew rubbed the fabric of the pillowcase between his fingers. It was sticky and snotty. 

**IV.**

"Are you free on Friday?"

"This upcoming Friday or the one after?"

"Uh, upcoming. Christmas is the next Friday."

"I...maybe. I guess I could be. Why?"

"I have to go to this shitty holiday party at the office and you were invited. Both of us were. Obviously. Sorry, he asked a couple days ago; I just remembered it now."

"They asked for me specifically? What, you need adult supervision?"

"Well, it was kind of implied. The exact words were _'Danny, you're married, right?'_ and I said _'Yeah'_ and my boss said _'Bring her with you'_ and I kinda, like, maybe tensed for a second? Then I said _'For sure, absolutely, I'll totally bring him'_ and he was like _'Oh, well, great, that's gonna look good for the Facebook page'._ So, uh, yeah, you kind of have to come so you can help me promote diversity and inclusion. You know, 'cause I'm so happy to be an advertisement for them." Danny's little half-laugh was more than a little forced. 

"Um, yeah. Fine. If you need me to go. S'fine."

"We don't have to stay that long—"

"I said it's fine." The flatness and coldness of Drew's tone startled a soccer mom across from him in aisle seven and she shot him a scowl. He immediately looked away, flushing. He lowered his voice. "Thanks for obligating me, though."

Danny sighed. "Are you really gonna get pissed at me about this? Sorry, but, uh, you don't really have a right to. Not right now." 

Drew bit down on his tongue. "I'm not."

"Dee, please," Danny said, using a nickname Drew hadn't heard in months. Hearing it over the phone in the grocery store was borderline surreal and it made him swallow too hard. "Can you be happy? I-I'm not telling you to be. I just want you to be. You know, even, like. Despite me."

"I _am_ happy," Drew said automatically. He glanced at his cart and realized he hadn't picked up anything on his list the entire time he’d been meandering around. Shutting his eyes briefly, he clenched his fingers around the handle before wheeling the cart back around and retracing his steps. "I'm happy with you." 

"There's gotta be something about me that doesn't make you happy."

"Why?"

Danny didn't say anything for a few seconds. When he did speak up again, it was tentative and even smaller. "You'd treat me better if there wasn't." 

Drew felt the base of his throat burn, weak and trembling for a moment in his flash of sick anger. Like a child, he took it out on a box of pasta, throwing it into the cart hard enough that it bounced and jostled the rest of the groceries. "What the hell do you want from me, Danny? It's not my fault that you start throwing a fit every single time I talk to you like a normal person instead of handling you with fucking kid gloves."

"It's not about talking. I don't care about you being an asshole when we're just trying to have a conversation or whatever. And you _know_ that's not what I mean."

"Maybe you can try and explain it better so I understand." A jar of tomato sauce dropped into the cart without much care and made it shudder. "Try getting it out." 

"I woke up today and I was bleeding everywhere." Drew heard a clatter and a scraping noise in the background of the call. The hurl of a utensil and the push of a chair. Behind his eyes, he could see Danny pacing in the kitchen, his skin a shade lighter than usual except for the flush in his cheeks, fingernails digging into his palm as his other hand went white-knuckled on his phone. He could see the errant curl sticking out from the rest of his groomed hair that Drew had touched that morning and Danny had shied away from it without saying a word. "Did you—did you drug me last night?"

 _"What?_ You were _drunk._ I came home last night and you were so fucking drunk you couldn't stand up.” The memory had texture: Danny had mumbled nonsense into an angled shoulder, tears and saliva and snot staining Drew’s shirt, clinging to him and telling him garbled apologies from something Drew hadn’t had a context for. “You think I _drugged_ you? Are you fucking crazy? Do you think I'm a psychopath?" 

"I think you're _something!_ What did you do to me last night?"

Drew felt suddenly dizzy and horribly, uncomfortably confused. "Nothing. I didn't do anything. What are you talking about?" 

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Danny's voice broke and Drew was too choked up with himself for it to feel like anything. "I just don't—what have I ever _done_ to you? I know you, and I know you'd never do this to anyone else, because you can't, you won't, you wouldn't ever, so what's _my_ problem? What have I done? What is it? Is there something wrong with me?"

"You're having a breakdown over something that didn't happen," Drew said as quietly as he could manage. His stomach churned, feeling a hideous blend of anxious, baffled, and infuriated that was making him nauseous and unsteady. "I can't talk about this over the phone. Especially not at fucking ALDI. We'll talk when I get home." 

"Are you really hanging up?"

Drew stared into the shopping cart. It was mostly empty. 

"I have to check out." He ended the call and took a chance to catch his breath against an end cap to keep himself from vomiting on the linoleum. 

* * *

Outside the front door, reusable shopping bag in one chapped, cold hand, the house key in the other, Drew stood stock-still. The key dug into his flesh, leaving behind imprints. He could feel it digging into his splinter, aching dully. 

He'd been treating his scabs and pulling at splinters, but he was positive something, somewhere, was getting infected. 

At least the pain brought him back to Earth. He stuck the key in the lock and turned it. 


	2. Chapter 2

**V.**

Danny felt his stomach plummet when he heard the front door open. Resolutely, he kept his eyes on the TV, fingernails picking and pulling at his PopSocket.

Snap, pop, snap, pop, snap, click, shove, pop. He had to keep doing something with his hands. He remembered reading somewhere that a PopSocket could be extended up to twelve-thousand times. He was pretty sure he'd used up half of its lifespan that afternoon alone. 

"I missed a couple things," he heard Drew say from the foyer. "It was overcrowded."

"I'll just go after work tomorrow." Danny shifted, pulling at the overlong sweater sleeve that had furled up around his wrist. "It's fine." Everything inside him pulled at him at once, begging him not to say anything else. Just shut up. Shut up. Stay quiet and not say anything. And yet. "I can't believe you hung up on me."

"I can't believe you wanted to make me talk about our incredibly personal marital issues right in the middle of the goddamn grocery store." Drew breezed past the couch without a glance at him, cold and impassive. 

"I didn't," Danny said, clenching his teeth and snapping the PopSocket flat again. "You could've stayed on the phone, though. You could've talked to me about anything else. I would've just waited till I could talk to you in private."

"Why would you want me to? Why am I even the kind of company you want right now?" Drew said from the kitchen. Boxes, cans, jars, and plastic packages hit the counter with far too much force. 

"I just didn't want to be alone!" Danny burst out, feeling that familiar, humiliating sting at the corners of his eyes. Not that he'd ever really cared too much about the concept, but he'd never been more emasculated in his life than he had been today with his miserable crying jags and inclination to curl in on himself in his pajamas all day. "Jesus, do you have any empathy at all? I think you fucked up and you did something horrible and gross and shitty and awful and I think you just need to apologize to me and fucking listen to me and understand what you did so I can just forgive you! And I will! I don't want any of this anymore!" 

Metal cracked like a firework when it made contact with the counter. Drew's voice sounded very, very careful. "What do you think I did to you, Danny?"

Danny seemed to burn from head to foot. He couldn't bring himself to use his words. He shrugged despite the fact that Drew couldn't see him, digging the base of the PopSocket underneath his fingernail, pushing the skin down. 

"Are you gonna answer me?" 

"I don't understand what your goal is here," Danny said, forcing each word out like it hurt. And it did. It hurt the longer he talked. "What are you trying to do to me? What do you want me to say?"

“I didn’t touch you last night. If _that’s_ what you’re talking about, I didn’t lay a hand on you. You threw up on the carpet, started crying, and you passed out and I cleaned you up and put you to bed.” A cabinet door banged shut. “Why are you fucking lying to me? What’s _your_ goal here, actually? Either you’re lying to me to, uh, I don’t know, manipulate me or drive me insane or something, or you—or you cheated on me. And whoever fucked you didn’t even care enough about you for you to cheat on me the right way.” 

“I’m sorry, _what?”_ Danny dropped his phone on the couch and got to his feet, feeling shaky and weak on his legs when he walked into the kitchen. He felt like he had a fever. Drew wouldn’t look at him, rearranging what little food was in the fridge as if he needed to make room for anything. “That’s what you’re accusing me of? You’re gaslighting me. That’s all. You’re fucking gaslighting me because I guess you feel guilty about it now, right?”

“Oh my God, do you understand how insane you’re acting?” Drew slammed the refrigerator door shut and whipped around. He didn’t know which was worse: making eye contact with Drew or avoiding it. Small, shorter, flimsy, and built from only bone and no muscle, Drew should’ve been the least intimidating person alive, but he still made Danny shrink down to nothing. “You went out and you must have single-handedly destroyed the tiniest semblance of intimacy and closeness we had left and you’re pinning it on me! Someone took advantage of you, but it wasn’t me! It was probably some guy you met for the very first time last night and you’ve been so _consumed_ with yourself lately that you decided to just say _‘Hey! Fuck it! Drew’s a self-mutilating, depressing asshole who obviously doesn’t care about me anymore, so why don’t I try to fill the hole in my heart with meaningless sex?’”_

“I can’t remember anything from last night! I don’t remember anything! Which is pretty fucking convenient, I think, actually, you know, for you, because it’s super easy to just make me into the bad guy when you don’t wanna be held accountable for the shit you’ve done—”

“You’re accusing me of _drugging and raping you,_ something that could send me to prison, actual fucking federal prison for _years,_ and that’s completely okay because you wanna act like a goddamn child who won’t acknowledge his own mistakes? Look, okay, just fucking—” Drew grabbed Danny’s arm and began to pull him out of the kitchen. “Come here. I _knew_ something was fucked up last night when I looked at your clothes.” 

Danny gagged on his own words, a winging, whining sound leaving his sewn-shut throat. His heart pounded, blood filling his ears. Despite his own blurry, half-heard protests, he went with Drew easily, his limbs even less responsive to his own will than before. 

“Come on, up the stairs. Come on.” Drew’s words were sharp and toothy, almost snarling. “I know you can walk.” Despite Danny tripping himself up, Drew didn’t wait for him, clenching him like a vice. 

“Here. Look at this.” Drew pushed open the bathroom door and released Danny’s arm. “Do you see this?” He reached down and picked a familiar, crumpled shirt off the floor, thrusting it at Danny. “I pulled this off you last night. Smell this. What does this smell like to you?”

Danny’s shaking fingers curled around it. It took a second for his mouth to work. “Vomit, I guess.”

“What else?” 

“I—I don’t know, Jesus, what does it matter?”

Drew’s teeth clamped together. “What else?”

“I don’t know. Alcohol. I don’t know what it is.”

“What else?”

Danny flushed red. “I don’t know.” 

“Yeah you do. What else, Danny?” 

“I get it.” 

“What?”

“I said I get it,” Danny muttered, dropping the shirt. It settled in a wrinkled lump among the rest of his clothes from last night. The shirt, a jacket, a pair of jeans. No underwear, funnily enough. 

“Tell me,” Drew insisted, taking a step forward, closing up their gap. Danny took a step back and felt the cold nip of the strip of bathroom wallpaper next to the doorway. The skin under his collar burned with humiliation, hot and itchy. “Instead of just making more accusations about me, I want you to tell me what that smells like to you.” Drew’s thigh brushed his, a hand clutching Danny’s shirt and pulling. Danny suddenly felt lightheaded, his fever worsening. “Tell me.”

Danny shut his eyes, trying to breathe. “Cigarettes,” he whispered. 

“That’s right.” Danny could feel Drew’s breath on the underside of his jaw. “I don’t smoke. You don’t smoke. But someone else does. Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” Danny managed. “I told you, I can’t remember. I really can’t. I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure you are. I know you are. I know you’re fucking sorry.” Drew sounded bitter enough to taste it. He sounded heartsick. He released his grip on Danny’s shirt and pulled at him instead. “I want you to get on your knees.” 

Danny’s stomach turned over. “What?” 

The heel of Drew’s shoe dug into Danny’s socked forefoot. “Get on your knees.” 

Danny swallowed and tried to remember exactly what was making him feel emasculated before, because it wasn’t half as bad as this. “I want to talk to you,” he said faintly. “Please.” 

“Look at me.” Drew took Danny’s chin and jaw in his hand, pinning him down with a sneer. Danny wanted to shut his eyes again. “If you’re going to act this way, I’ll have to treat you this way. You get it, don’t you? Do I really have to say it?” 

Danny avoided Drew’s gaze, blushing harder. His own voice barely existed. “Please.” 

“Kneel down. You know, if you’re really that sorry.” Drew’s shoe nearly made a dent in Danny’s foot. Danny could imagine the bones cracking with just a little bit more pressure. “Get on your fucking knees and tell me you’re sorry.” 

Danny found himself surrounded by the cold bathroom tile before he was aware he’d moved. His fingers slipped a few times on Drew’s zipper before finally pulling it down, his insides twisted and rotting with shame. 

* * *

“That’s right.” A careful hand brushed his full cheek, thumbing away a tear. “Fuck, that’s right.”

It wasn’t. None of this was. It hadn’t been for almost a year now and they would keep falling apart until neither of them had any pieces left. Danny’s jaw ached as precum seeped through the fabric of his pants and leaked down his throat. 

* * *

They fell asleep in the same bed that night, closer and more entwined than they had been in a while—but only because neither of them could bear to sleep alone. 

  
  


**VI.**

  
  


“I didn’t know you were married!”

“Ha, uh, yeah.” Danny briefly fingered his ring, looking down at it with an awkward half-smile. “It’ll be, um. Six years in a few months.” 

“Is she here?” The intern, he couldn’t remember her name, was kind, blonde, and oblivious. She was bright and glittery and red and green, matching the manufactured cheer around the rest of the office. 

“He’s in the car. He’s gonna be here in a minute.”

“Oh! Oh, sorry, I didn’t, ah, you just, I didn’t mean to—”

Danny did actually smile this time. It felt good. “Don’t worry about it, seriously, you’re okay. I know you didn’t—”

“I know,” she said quickly. “I know, I just. Sorry. Um.” She shook her head. “Anyway, yeah, I didn’t know you were married. He’s gotta think he’s lucky.” 

Danny took a glance out the window of the complex. From his view of the employee parking lot, Drew leaned against the car, phone in hand. Almost as though some outside force had compelled him, he looked up and caught Danny’s eye. He quickly looked back down like he’d made eye contact with a stranger. 

“Yeah.” Danny twisted his wedding ring, watching Drew’s fingers move in the distance. He pushed his hands into his pockets, feeling the metal singe his skin. “Yeah, I’m sure he does.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**VII.**

Drew felt eyes on him. He looked up, the back of his neck tickling uncomfortably. Danny was watching him from the window, looking melancholy. He stood a little too close to a girl Drew had never seen before in his life.

Drew looked back down at his text to Amanda, the most abstract, emotionless complaint of being a plus-one at a holiday party. He sent it and pulled at his collar, exhaling. 

He could feel splinters throughout his body. Whenever he breathed, they cracked and snapped in his chest. Every inch of skin pulled and pushed together like it was being hand-stitched. 

Drew was infected and, by extension, so was Danny. There wasn’t a cure. They’d just have to suffer together. 

His body pinched and pin-pricked beyond reason, he dragged it forward so he could continue to keep up appearances. Drew at least owed that much to Danny. 


End file.
